The confirmation of the close (less than 10 meters) encounter comes from the Swedish Defence Agency in a statement that this is now a common occurrence over the last six months.
– In general the military activity over the Baltic sea has had an noticeable increase, it’s now common place that Russian fighter jets act aggressively against other flights in international airspace says Lena Nyberg, head of the signal intelligence department on FRA .
Swedish Defence Agency’s acting chief of rapid response, Anders Grenstad, notes that they closely follow all Russian aviation activity in the area.
– They are now showing a behaviour that we haven’t seen during previous years, it’s markedly more aggressive flying now. As the government concluded there is continued tension building in our part of the world and Russia is acting a lot more aggressive, he adds.